Health Blog

Hospital to home: Making the transition safer

There’s a great deal of information you need to understand when you or a loved one makes the transition from the hospital to home after inpatient treatment. Unfortunately, being discharged from the hospital can be a very confusing time and that confusion can lead to problems once you’re home or even readmission to the hospital.

There are several different issues that can make the hospital to home transition more complicated, including:

Test results may not be available yet

Medications may have been prescribed in the hospital or ones you take regularly may have been temporarily stopped before your treatment or surgery

To help insure that your transition from the hospital to home is a smooth and safe one, you should talk with the physician who is leading your treatment team before your discharge and carefully review the discharge instructions to make sure you understand what you need to do next and that all the important information is clearly spelled out in the written instructions provided by the nursing staff.

The issues you should discuss with your doctor may include:

What is my diagnosis at discharge and what is my treatment plan?

Are there any testing results still pending and when and how will I receive the results of those tests?

Should I continue to take medications I was prescribed in the hospital? If so, have you provided the prescriptions I need? Should I resume taking medications I was taking before? Are there any potential interactions with the newly prescribed medications?

It can also be very helpful to have a family member, friend, or health advisor who can help you gather all the information you need, make appointments, fill prescriptions, and help you manage your transition from the hospital to home for a more successful and less stressful recovery.

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